Triple-Network Functional Connectivity in Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder Compared to Early-Onset Psychosis.
Autistic teens show weak salience-network wiring that tracks their social-cognition score, a pattern not seen in psychosis or typical peers.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers scanned the brains of 45 teens with autism, 30 with early-onset psychosis, and 45 typical peers.
They measured resting-state activity in three big brain networks: salience, default mode, and central executive.
Each teen also took social-cognition tests that asked them to read faces and guess feelings.
What they found
Only the autism group showed weak wiring in the salience network—the brain’s switchboard that tags what matters.
Weaker salience links predicted lower social-cognition scores, even after IQ was held constant.
Psychosis teens had different problems, so the pattern is autism-specific, not just any diagnosis.
How this fits with other research
Audras-Torrent et al. (2021) meta-analysis also found sluggish semantic networks in autism, showing the issue spans many systems.
Fitzgerald et al. (2015) saw weak attention networks in autism teens during tasks; Aarti now shows the same teens have weak salience wiring at rest, so the problem is steady, not momentary.
Pielech et al. (2016) reported sex-specific brain activity only in males; Aarti included both sexes and still found the salience link, suggesting the salience finding holds across girls and boys.
Why it matters
You can’t scan brains in clinic, but you can probe salience quickly: note if the client misses novel cues, jumps topics, or needs extra prompts to shift attention. Pair these brief checks with face-reading drills; teens who struggle most may be the same ones with the weakest salience wiring, giving you a clear target for intervention.
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Join Free →Start each session with a 30-second novelty probe—show a new meme or sound—and record how fast the teen orients; use the slowest orienters to prioritize salience-training trials first.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Both autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and psychosis are associated with challenges in social cognition. The triple-network model posits that dysfunction within and between the default mode network (DMN), central executive network (CEN), and salience network (SN) contributes to these deficits. However, the relationship between triple-network connectivity and social cognition has not been systematically compared across these groups during adolescence. We examined whole-brain functional connectivity of the triple-network in a sample of youth with ASD (N = 24), youth with early-onset psychosis (EOP; N = 25), and age-matched typically developing (TD) controls (N = 26, overall mean age = 16.39 ± 2.36, % female = 41%). Additionally, we examined relationships between connectivity patterns of the triple-network and behavioral measures of social cognition and emotion recognition in each group. ASD youth showed mixed over- and under-connectivity in the DMN, CEN overconnectivity, and SN underconnectivity, while EOP youth showed DMN and CEN overconnectivity, with relatively intact SN connectivity, compared to TD controls. Compared to EOP, ASD participants had reduced SN connectivity and mixed disruptions in DMN connectivity. Across groups, connectivity patterns were linked to social behaviors: in EOP, DMN overconnectivity was associated with poorer social cognition; in ASD, SN underconnectivity was associated with poorer social cognition. These findings highlight both shared and distinct patterns of triple-network dysconnectivity in ASD and EOP, supporting transdiagnostic models of social cognitive dysfunction, and reinforcing adolescence as a key developmental window for network-based brain changes.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2026 · doi:10.1002/aur.70163